"Your Daily Tripod" reflects the personal Fourth Day journeys of its authors and editors. We are happy to have companions like you share in this project. Our prayer is that these reflections will invite and inspire your Fourth Day journey of Piety, Study and Action as much as writing or editing them inspires our journey and brings us all close moments with Jesus and our neighbors.

Saturday, July 05, 2014

Bring About the Restoration

Yes, days are coming, says the LORD, when the plowman
shall overtake the reaper, and the vintager, him who sows the seed; The juice
of grapes shall drip down the mountains, and all the hills shall run with
it. I will bring about the restoration
of my people Israel; they shall rebuild and inhabit their ruined cities, Plant
vineyards and drink the wine, set out gardens and eat the fruits. Amos 9:13-14

No one patches an old cloak with a piece of unshrunken
cloth, for its fullness pulls away from the cloak and the tear gets worse. People do not put new wine into old
wineskins. Otherwise the skins burst,
the wine spills out, and the skins are ruined.
Rather, they pour new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are
preserved.” Matthew 9:16-17

Piety

I will listen for what
God, the LORD, has to say; surely he will speak of peace to his people and to
his faithful. May they not turn to
foolishness! Near indeed is his
salvation for those who fear him; glory will dwell in our land. Love and truth will meet; justice and peace
will kiss. (Psalm 85:9-11)

Study

How things change when
people follow the Lord and do not reject His ways.

Earlier in the book of Amos, the prophet
explained that the people would be cursed for their crimes and sins against
justice: Therefore, because you tax the
destitute and exact from them levies of grain, Though you have built houses of
hewn stone, you shall not live in them; Though you have planted choice
vineyards, you shall not drink their wine. (Amos 5:11)

Obedience and humility are
rewarded as we read in today’s first passage from the Hebrew Bible. The same actions result in very different
outcomes when the new orders are followed. Destruction is not the Lord’s final
command. Rather justice and peace will
kiss. The Lord’s mercy is enduring and
plentiful despite what we do. Those who
follow will have abundance (dripping with new wine) while those who do not will
know famine and thirst. “The Lord speaks of peace to his people”
(Psalm 85) not gloom and doom.

In exchange for this
reward, Jesus is not looking for sacrifice but for action: treating the poor and powerless with
generosity and protection. Fasting, while
a worthy practice, is not the only worthy practice. There is a time for action, a time to “go in
peace to love and serve the world.” The
notes to the New American Bible point out that: “Fasting is a sign of mourning
and would be as inappropriate at this time of joy, when Jesus is proclaiming
the kingdom, as it would be at a marriage feast. Yet the saying looks forward
to the time when Jesus will no longer be with the disciples visibly, the time
of Matthew’s church.”

Jesus is not just patching
up what is lacking in the old faith to restore it to newness. Jesus is, in fact, establishing a new order
that is open and welcoming to all. Hos
new wine would burst the old wine skins of the Hebrew church. Therefore, Jesus introduces us to ways to
dwell with Him in newness as He dwells within us.

Action

Reading today’s Psalm, I
hear it echo as the Mass is celebrated along the U.S. Mexico border.Angry mobs are turning away busses of
unaccompanied children who tried to flee violence and oppression in their
homeland for the promise of plenty in the United States.

They hear and read the
same Good News as we do. That message
preaches restoration and fulfillment.

If we listen for what God
calls on us to do, we might hear the message that we are a people of
hospitality, not hosptility. Even as the
government processes the undocumented immigrants to return them home, how can
we live up to the ideals and actions toward these poor and destitute children
and families?